


The Far Shores of Par Vollen: the Qunari and How They Got That Way

by Taffia



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Athens, Other, Par Vollen, Philosophy, Qun, Qunandar, Qunari, Republic, Sparta - Freeform, Thedas, philosophy as inspiration, plato - Freeform, sociology - Freeform, symposium
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-07-05
Updated: 2012-07-04
Packaged: 2017-11-09 05:08:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/451652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taffia/pseuds/Taffia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"There is no struggle. Victory is in the Qun."  Questions have been asked and debates have raged about the nature of the Qunari, who they really are, where they come from, and what their intentions are for Thedas. Answers have ranged from the vague and fantastical to real-world cultural juggernauts. Reactions have varied just as greatly. This is not a work of fanfiction but rather a multi-part essay detailing the Qunari from one of BioWare's primary sources of inspiration: Plato's <i>Republic</i>. Basic living conditions, the military and its aims, philosophy and religion, love, and matters of the soul will all be discussed in turn with the intention of better understanding the fictional culture we have only so far seen a glimpse of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Introduction

The denizens of Thedas have long been aware of a dangerously warlike culture inhabiting the islands of the northern archipelago. Tevinter has long been at war with these Golden Giants, and Ferelden has only recently made contact through one known as Sten of the Beresaad. They are the stuff of legend and nightmare, that ever-looming threat that, one day, all will be assimilated, resistance being futile. They fight with the strength of ogres and follow a creed stricter than even the White Divine could conceive. Their navy rivals that of the Felicisima Armada. They are the Qunari.

In the Dragon Age series of video games and novels, there has been very little direct exposure to the Qunari outside brief encounters with their military force, and it leaves our understanding of them nebulous at best. Codex entries throughout the games and conversations with characters such as Sten, Arvaraad, and the Arishok offer a slightly deeper view into their culture and history, but it is still not much. David Gaider and Mary Kirby have provided further information on the BioWare Social Network Forums, and this has been compiled on the Dragon Age Wikia site on the page referencing the Kossith race.

Despite the references and provided details, the Qunari still feel vague and not as deeply explored as the other cultures scattered throughout Thedas. They give us a companion in _Dragon Age: Origins_ (DAO), a formidable opponent in _Dragon Age II_ (DA2), but it remains that there is so little for anyone to go on in order to delve deeper. That is, however, until one spots the comment in the Trivia section of the Kossith wikia page: “The structure of Qunari society is identical to the ideal community outlined in Plato's _Republic_....” 1

The wikia is now no longer our primary source of information. We have pages and pages of translated Classical Greek text at our disposal to happily reference should we so choose. However, not all of that text is relevant. Plato wrote out his philosophy in a series of dialogues that developed each concept over the course of a contrived conversation and sometimes never fully solidified the base idea. _Republic_ is no different. In it, Plato discusses not only his ideas for the ideal society but re-emphasizes concepts from other dialogues such as his primary virtues and what he believes the ideal love to be. The reader also must be made aware of the context of this dialogue as it emerged from Plato's own life and socio-political views. Understanding this is crucial to conceptualizing his ideal society and, by proxy, getting a better grip on who the Qunari really are and what that means for Thedas.

The basis that must be established is what sort of culture the Qunari actually have. With the aforementioned vagueness, fanfiction and other fan works have portrayed the followers of the Qun as having origins akin to _Star Trek_ 's Klingons, Borg, or the Samurai of feudal Japan. These are not totally off-base beliefs, but I will once again direct attention back to the quote given above. If the society is identical to that in the _Republic_ , then the conclusion can be drawn that it is predominantly ancient Greek in nature with other elements thrown in for fantasy world flavor. The truth is that many things serve as inspiration for the Qunari as the other cultures in Thedas, but the intent of this essay is to illustrate how what we have already seen in the Dragon Age games relates to Plato and how other facets may be understood based upon that.

1“Kossith”, _Dragon Age Wiki_ , <http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Kossith> (January 2012)


	2. Qunandar: Life at Home in the Qunari City State

Plato was born into the Athenian aristocracy in the late fifth century B.C.E. He was highly educated and one of the many followers of Socrates, whom he involves in most of his dialogues as the primary speaker. He lived through the Peloponnesian War, where the city state of Athens had built a sort of empire in the Aegean region that other Greek city states—especially Sparta—contested. The setting was rife with warfare, famine, and corrupt politics, and Socrates' suicide in 399 B.C.E. was the final slight Plato could abide before he officially began to involve himself in Athenian matters of state.1

The philosopher illustrates the situation as he sees it through what scholars commonly refer to as the Seventh Letter, one of several such documents written to friends which provide a more autobiographical view of Plato. He relates how, in his youth, he watched the old constitution of Athens be replaced with another and how this filled him with hope of how society would prosper beneath it. He was only to be disappointed. The thirty men given absolute power over this new government became tyrannical, and even the overthrow of these Thirty Tyrants and the constitution they represented was no true reprieve. Socrates died in the fallout, and Plato was left with the realization:

_The more I reflected upon what was happening, upon what kind of men were active in politics, and upon the state of our laws and customs, and the older I grew, the more I realized how difficult it is to manage a city's affairs rightly. … At last I came to the conclusion that all existing states are badly governed and the condition of their laws practically incurable, without some miraculous remedy and the assistance of fortune; and I was forced to say, in praise of true philosophy, that from her height alone was it possible to discern what the nature of justice is, either in the state or in the individual, and that the ills of the human race would never end until political power, or the rulers of our cities...learn true philosophy._ 2

This view influenced much of what Plato included in his dialogues, especially the  _Republic_ . He painted a state where there could be no corruption by greed, for there was no excess of material wealth. He envisioned a society free of civil strife, for everyone was born into a role and purpose and lived in daily accordance with it. He wrote of a place where every king is a philosopher and every philosopher is a king, where the virtues ( _aretê_ ) of wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice maintain a perpetual and harmonious balance. Most of all, he created a society where justice was, indeed, the supreme force that every other state in the known world should aspire to.

The Qunari society is built to reflect this. Sten and the Arishok both make it clear early on to both the Warden and Hawke that their lives are framed by purpose, by their duty to the Qun, that there is no room for selfishness or greed, and that honor (framed in Plato's  _aretê_ ) is paramount. Sten's duty is bound to making recompense for a crime, and the Arishok's is tied to finding the relic lost to the Qunari somewhere in Kirkwall. Predominantly, the solutions to these problems are martial in nature (as mentioned, the Qunari encountered in the games are military), but tied directly to the core of Qunari society.

Everyone serves a purpose. Everyone has a function. Their duty is to perform that function for the betterment of society as a whole, and to see that, we need to look at the entire picture as it is available to us.

_1.1 Children of Earth_

Plato, through Socrates, explains to his interlocuters that to first establish this ideal State of his, a necessary fiction must be invented, spread, and believed. It is referred to as the myth of the Children of Earth, for it would be told the people of the State that they all have the same mother (being the earth itself) and are, therefore, all brothers and sisters. This does not mean, however, that all citizens are equally equipped. As Socrates tells Glaucon:

“ _All of you in the city are brothers,” we'll say to them in telling our story, “but the god who made you [being the earth] mixed some gold into those who are adequately equipped to rule, because they are most valuable. He put silver in those who are auxiliaries and iron and bronze in the farmers and other craftsmen. For the most part you will produce children like yourselves, but, because you are all related, a silver child will occasionally be born from a golden parent, and vice versa, and all the others from each other. So the first and most important command from the god to the rulers is that there is nothing that they must guard better or watch more closely than the mixture of metals in the souls of the next generation.”_ 3

He continues to emphasize the different bloodlines. A child born of iron or bronze is not to be pitied but to be given their purpose like any other. A child of gold or silver will receive due honors and be trained, likewise, for their particular purpose. However, it is made clear that the State would be ruined completely should a child of iron or bronze be made part of the ruling class—those Plato refers to commonly as “guardians”.4 This implies that even those of gold may beget those of iron and vice versa. The pairings and results must be recorded and monitored, and this, too, forms the grounds of life within the Qunari culture.

We cannot look at all Qunari for this illustration. Rather, we must look only at those that brought the Qun to the rest of Thedas, the race known as the kossith. They are nicknamed the Golden Giants in the Dragon Age codex, which would seem like a confusing misnomer to those familiar with how the race was rendered in DA2. However, with Plato's origin myth in mind, things can be made a little more clear.

Kossith are tall, horned humanoids that have thus far appeared with gray or bronze skin. Sten is the first encountered, his skin a confusing hue, but the Arishok of DA2 is clearly defined as being silver-skinned. Another appropriate visual example is that of Armaas, a Tal-Vashoth merchant the player character meets in  _Dragon Age: Awakening_ (Awakening). His skin tone is a definitive bronze, and between at least the Arishok and him, we have the more obvious arguments in support of Plato. Sten is a special case and will be discussed separately.

The Arishok, leader of the  _antaam_ or Auxiliaries for the Qunari people, has the skin tone to match the metal Plato outlines in the  _Republic_ for just such an individual. Armaas has distinctly bronze skin and, when he introduces himself to the [Orlesian] Warden, he mentions how he is a merchant and a little of how that works for Qunari (even though he considers himself no longer part of them). Arishok, silver, warrior; Armaas, bronze, merchant/craftsman—therein lies the pattern.

The problem arises from the fact that a gold-skinned kossith has yet to make an appearance in the games unless Sten fills this role. The codex entries on the first encounters with Qunari in Thedas implied that quite a few of them had gold skin. The Qunari are too practical to make armor from as malleable a metal as gold. The armor we see them wearing in DA2 is leather-based. Why else call them the Golden Giants? Unfortunately, there is no other point of reference to compare Sten to, and he very closely resembles Armaas. This could be due to game development more than actual concepts, where BioWare was graphically unable to render the kossith as they wished until DA2.5

Every kossith warrior encountered in DA2 has the same silver skin, not just the Arishok. Beyond a doubt, this fits with Plato's concept of the Auxiliaries being born of silver. Even the Tal-Vashoth that swarm the Wounded Coast in Act I are deserters from the Qunari army ( _antaam_ ). The expansion,  _Mark of the Assassin_ (MotA), contains still more kossith, also of a silver hue and also of the warrior caste.

_1.2 Breeding and Child-rearing_

Plato's metals in the blood are only the beginning for the Qunari, however, especially as not all Qunari are kossith. He has Socrates tell the interlocuters that bloodlines must be monitored and recorded. The Tamassrans fill this role in Qunari society, not only keeping track of mated pairings and the children that resulted, but even raising those children in a communal environment. The process is very similar to dog breeding, where certain traits are aimed for, particularly if something specific is required. The Qunari fear mages in general, but they still view them as useful tools. Magic is a trait passed along genetically as we learn first-hand in DA2 while following the storyline as Hawke. To breed for this—or even avoid breeding it—would be a distinct possibility.

The  _Republic_ establishes that children are raised communally in Plato's ideal State, and the given Qunari lore supports this. What follows in Plato's writing is very similar to what happened historically in ancient Greece. This is not as straightforward as it may seem. Historians and archaeologists have discovered a great deal about the ancient Greek culture, but the vast majority regards Athens. Ancient Greece was not one cohesive nation as we know today. It was a conglomeration of city states and their colonies that spanned the Aegean Sea and went as far west as Sicily and other Mediterranean islands. Each city state had its own government, its own laws, its own variation on the same culture. Plato's ideal state draws heavily on Athenian culture, very likely the best parts he saw in it, but also applies much from Athens' most prominent rival: Sparta. This is where it must be remembered that Plato lived through the devastation and political upheaval of the Peloponnesian War, an event that changed the role of Athens in the Classical world forever.

So much is known of Athens that it can feel like a daunting task to sort through the information. In the words of Philip E. Slater, “We have too much rather than too little data about this curious society and its inhabitants—enough to characterize them in virtually any way one wishes.”6 Conversely, there is precious little that survives to tell us about Sparta. Thucydides, the writer of  _The Peloponnesian War_ , was Athenian. He had even served in the Athenian military against Sparta. Whatever information he provides is as an outside observer. The only other detailed accounts come to us from Herodotus, considered to be the world's first ethnographer, and Plutarch, a Greek social historian who lived centuries after Plato but whose sources of information were likely the same (public records, annals, regional mythologies, etc.). We have no inside accounts from Sparta in literature, but we know enough to fill a few gaps.

Plato's ideal State is presented as a society that exists for the benefit of all mankind, but the philosopher makes no attempt to present all its citizens as natural equals. They are all brothers and sisters via the earth, certainly. They are all born to a purpose and capable to fulfill that purpose. But they are not all  _equal_ . Straight off with the myth of the Children of Earth, he categorizes them into three distinct castes where gold is the greatest of them, silver still valuable but less so, and iron and bronze making up the largest portion at the bottom. Breeding keeps this in mind, where those of desirable traits are kept with others of desirable traits. The undesirables kept with the others of their kind. The children that resulted from these pairings, he says, are to be treated in separate ways:

_...the principle has been already laid down that the best of either sex should be united with the best as often, and the inferior with the inferior as seldom, as possible; and that they should rear the offspring of the one sort of union, but not of the other, if the flock is to be maintained in first-rate condition._ 7

Keep the best and strongest; disregard (or discard) the worst and weakest. Such was not Athenian practice but one attributed to Sparta. According to Plutarch, male newborns were examined by the elders and, if seen fit, were given back to the father to raise. If deemed unfit, the infants were left at the foot of Mount Taygetus to die from exposure.8 It was a practice in eugenics in one of its earliest forms, and Plato appears to have supported this.

There is nothing obvious presented in either DAO or DA2 that the Qunari are this severe in their breeding policies, but certain things have been established by Mary Kirby on the BioWare Social Network forums that then got transferred to the wikia. The Tamassrans track the breeding and raise the children, as stated, but it has also been stressed that the Qunari waste nothing—not even people. Even if a child is weak or sickly, effort would be taken to ensure that child still serves some purpose. They might be lame but be bright of mind and assigned to the priesthood as Tamassran or even Ashkaari, the rank of philosophers, scientists, and historians. And even if all they are ever capable of is a menial role considered low, perhaps as a kitchen hand or common laborer, it is still a purpose that must be fulfilled to keep the society running in complete harmony. Due to this communal raising of the children, the adults never know which child is actually theirs. This ties to the emphasis on the Qunari having no personal possessions to keep greed and selfishness out of the equation. Also, to remove the family factor, to ensure that no one citizen will rush to the aid of a spouse or child instead of another Qunari that is in more need of assistance, is more in the interest of the society as a whole.

_1.3 Education_

A strong amount of emphasis would be placed on education, no matter what purpose the Qunari child will grow to serve. As Sten tells Leliana, “Qunari are most dangerous because we are thinking men and not unthinking force.”9 Plato stresses repeatedly the importance of education and that children need to be made aware of who their people are from the earliest possible age.

No matter if male or female, Qunari children—as the  _Republic_ 's children—would be trained in philosophy and martial skill. They would learn the tenets of their belief (the Qun, in this case) and learn to live by them in strict adherence. They would even be taken into battle once they are deemed ready for the sight of blood. Plato's children due to be guardians and warriors would be seated on the swiftest horses in order to make any necessary escape.10 The children of artisans and craftsman and other husbandmen would be sent to the appropriate apprenticeships, but whereas Plato's children would be trained by their own parents in many situations, the Qunari Tamassrans would attempt to find the best suitable masters rather than a blood relative. 

When they come of age, each Qunari would be assigned to a role deemed most appropriate for their skills and talents. This may or may not be permanent depending on how well the Tamassrans did their own jobs, but such a situation would be a rarity. Otherwise, the Qunari is now free to do as the Arishok referenced: to choose within that role. This does not simply mean to choose to be or not be. Just as occupations in the real world have promotional or rotational paths, so do those under the Qun. A simple Karashok, the lowest ranking soldier, may aspire to be Arishok and work towards that aim. Or, he may be content to be as he is. An Ashkaari may not only wish to research those things related to medicine but practice them as well if they have a quick mind and capable hands and willing heart. The reasoning behind this is simple and as applicable to our world as Thedas. An IT professional may wish to be an artist, but that does not mean he or she can paint or draw. A child may be told that absolutely anything is possible only to be frustrated when it is discovered that math is not as easily understood as language or mental pursuits as instinctive as martial. Plato approached this same concept with his rudimentary approach to eugenics.

Distinction is made between professions suitable for males and females. To men is the domain of war. To women are the realms of administration and domestic tasks. Any may be craftsmen or farmers. It is a matter of gender equity rather than equality, each being better suited for one thing or another based on inherent capabilities. For the Greeks, this was tied to their heavily patriarchal culture. For the Qunari, it would have more to do with their knowledge of inherited traits and historical observations. A woman will never have the same musculature of a man naturally. Therefore, how can she be expected to wield heavy weaponry with the same strength and fortitude? This does not mean that a woman cannot be taught to defend herself and others, as evidenced by the Ben-Hassrath, of which both men and women are members.

The Qunari live simply as those in Plato's ideal State live simply. Quarters are communal—in the sense that even a bed chamber for one individual may be entered and used by anyone—and furnished in a way considered appropriate for soldiers:

_...none of them should have any property of his own beyond what is absolutely necessary; neither should they have a private house or store closed against anyone who has a mind to enter; their provisions should be only such as are required by trained warriors, who are men of temperance and courage; they should agree to receive from the citizens a fixed rate of pay, enough to meet the expenses of the year and no more; and they will go to mess and live together like soldiers in a camp._ 11

A Spartan existence in every sense of the term. The interlocuters repeatedly argue that the people would want some form of luxury, something unnecessary merely to add spice to life, but if one has everything one  _needs_ , ideally, there would be no  _want_ . Whether achievable in real life or not, the Qunari endeavor to abide by this.

But, as with any established society, there will always be enemies from without. Plato was well aware of this when designing his Republic. The Qunari, as especially evidenced in DA2, are keenly aware, also. To outsiders, their entire society seems to be centered around warfare, a single-minded, warmongering machine. Above, we have described at a high level the soft underbelly of the Qunari society. Now, we shall turn to the teeth and jaws that protect the heart of the many: the  _antaam_ .

1Plato, introduction to _Republic_ , ed. Elizabeth Watson Scharffenberger (Barnes & Noble Classics: New York, 2004), xvi-xx, xxx-xxxii.

2Plato, “Letter VII”, _Plato: The Complete Works_ , ed. John M. Cooper (Hackett Publishing Company: Cambridge, 1997), 324b-326b.

3Plato, _Republic_ , 3.415a-415b.

4Plato, _Republic_ , 3.415c.

5“Kossith”, _Dragon Age Wiki_ , <http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Kossith> (January 2012)

6Slater, Philip E., “The Greek Mother-Son Relationship: Origins and Consequences,” _For the Glory of Hera: Greek Mythology and the Greek Family_ (Beacon Press: Boston, 1968), pg. 3.

7Plato, _Republic_ , 5.459d.

8Jones, Nicholas F., “Citizens, Resident Aliens, and Slaves,” _Ancient Greece: State and Society_ (Prentice Hall: New Jersey, 1996), pg. 109.

9“Sten Dialogue”, _Dragon Age Wiki_

10Plato, _Republic_ , 5.466d-467e.

11Plato, _Republic_ , 3.416d-416e.


End file.
